Although arson is blamed for at least three fires in June at several predominantly black churches in Southern states, investigators say a blaze that destroyed Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina was not deliberately set. Churchgoers had feared the worst because the church in Greeleyville, S.C., was burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan in 1995. The latest fire broke out on June 29 during a night of frequent storms and lightning strikes. Federal investigators are looking into some of the cases as possible hate crimes. The timing of recent fires in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, coming in the wake of the shooting at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston on June 17, could be a cause for concern, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. They may be retaliation for the backlash against the Confederate flag that followed the shootings, he said.
Churches Burning
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
“Pope Francis is the pope of the people,” Rosa de los Ríos told America in Spanish before the funeral Mass. “He is very close to the people.... That’s why he was so loved. People felt he was very close to them.”
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met inside St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of the funeral for Pope Francis on the morning of April 26.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re’s homily for the funeral of Pope Francis.
The day before he died, Pope Francis made one final circuit through St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile. “That’s my last image of him alive,” Gerry O’Connell remembered. “He drove among the people.”